WWE News: Xavier Woods absent from recent live events

The reason is not what you think...

What’s the story?

Xavier Woods, who has been embroiled in the recent Paige scandal, missed the recent WWE live events in Syracuse and Allentown on Friday and Saturday respectively. However, Big E and Kofi Kingston were in action at the show. While many speculated that the company have dished out a punishment to the New Day member owing to the recent leak, the reason is something different altogether.

Woods was busy hosting the SXSW Gaming Awards in Austin, TX this weekend, which was why he skipped the house shows.

In case you missed it...

The recent leak of Paige’s private photos and videos that included footage of Woods, Brad Maddox and Paige indulging in sexual acts have broken the Internet into pieces. Paige responded to the shocking hacking scandal and said all of it was obviously done without her consent.

Xavier Woods took made a subtle joke about the whole incident at the Gaming Awards ceremony.

As for Brad Maddox, the former WWE superstar has deleted all his social media accounts to avoid the jibes and comments of the fans.

The heart of the matter

The private content leak is certainly isn’t the fault of all the superstars involved and thus, strict action is unwarranted. By the looks of it, Woods would not be forced to miss TV and the recent no-show at the live events was just because of his gaming gig. SXSW posted the tweet following the event:

Woods is also advertised to appear on the upcoming episode of RAW, but all of it’s subject to change.

What's next?

Woods will co-host WresleMania 33 along with Big E and Kofi Kingston and such a murky revelation would have surely come as a big blow to WWE and Woods himself. WWE has always chosen to ignore such incidents (Seth Rollins’ exposing pic and Tom Phillips’ sexting scandal), keeping mum until the whole issue dies down.

In this case, it would take some time and the WWE Universe is expected to come up with some quirky chants on all its shows on the road to WrestleMania. Talking about the woman of the moment, Paige is out nursing a neck injury and is recuperating after undergoing surgery. She isn’t expected to be back anytime soon and we’re relieved about it. The fans would be ruthless if her music hits on RAW before WrestleMania 33.

Author’s take

With WrestleMania 33 coming up, it's good to see WWE taking a lighter stand when it comes such a tricky situation. Woods is an asset on the microphone and they need him for the biggest show of the yeast.

While the recent leak is unfortunate, the reactions of the fans who’ve taken the opportunity to nonchalantly rip apart the three stars – Paige in particular – has been unapologetically disheartening. A little banter is fine, but questioning Paige and her life decisions are taking things to far.

The comments section on Woods’ recent videos on UpUpDownDown have nothing relating to what’s happening the video and are all centred around recent events. WrestleMania is almost here and it’s time to shift our attention to the show of shows (however lacklustre it may seem) rather than the show of sleaze.